Double Take The surprisingly strong American swimmers got the biggest surprise of all when Anthony Ervin and Gary Hall Jr. won in a dead heat

The scoreboard was a confusing jumble of numbers and names andresults. Turning around, squinting, looking at the wall at thefar end of the pool at the Aquatics Centre last Friday night,Gary Hall Jr. and Anthony Ervin were puzzled. The scoreboard hadtoo much information. Or maybe not enough. LANE 3. ERVIN. USA.21.98 (1). LANE 4. HALL JR. USA. 21.98. (1). Something didn'tcompute.

I won! each American swimmer thought at first glance.

Wait a minute, he won, each thought at second glance.

Wait a minute, each thought, his chest still heaving from theeffort in the 50-meter freestyle final, the crowd of 17,500 stillroaring as everyone began to understand what had just happened.We both won?

In all the hours, all the days, in the months they had trainedtogether in Phoenix and in Colorado Springs and, finally, inSydney, Ervin and Hall had never imagined a dead heat. They hadworked with each other and against each other, half friends andhalf adversaries, getting ready to take on the rest of the worldby taking on each other every day. Who ever could have predictedsuch a long journey could end at the same time and the sameplace?

Two men from the same pool. Two gold medals. Small world. In asurprising show of U.S. dominance in the eight days of swimmingcompetition--14 gold medals, eight silver, 11 bronze--this was thefunkiest surprise of them all.

As part of Phoenix Swim Club coach Mike Bottom's Sprint Team2000, consisting of a dozen sprinters from assorted countriespreparing for the Olympics, Hall and Ervin followed the sameprogram. They ate the same Platinum Performance vitamins that hadpropelled Fusaichi Pegasus to victory in the Kentucky Derby. Theylistened to the same sports psychologists. They hit the samespeed bags for coordination. They raced. They raced and raced.

There were no standings kept for these every-day races, noresults that lasted for anything longer than the moment. Therewas only the constant friction of competition, the push and shoveagainst each other.

Hall was the resident talent, 26 years old, 6'6", 216 pounds, asilver medalist in the 50 and the 100 in Atlanta in 1996. Alwaysknown as a flake, a hey-dude character, with his headphonessending Grateful Dead music through his ears, he had modifiedthat act heading into these Olympics. He was trying to reassemblea swim career that had been broken apart by a mistake (athree-month suspension in 1998 after testing positive formarijuana use caused him to be dropped by his sponsor, Speedo)and misfortune (the onset of diabetes in March '99). He wasinjecting himself with insulin up to eight times a day, trying tomaintain a high energy level while monitoring his blood-sugarlevels. He had to take a blood-sugar reading every 30 minutes,pricking his thumb so often that he figured he could draw bloodsimply by squeezing the thumb with his other hand, the bloodsquirting out like juice from a grape.

Ervin was the newcomer, a 19-year-old Berkeley sophomore fromValencia, Calif. He had virtually no international experience andlooked small and slender for a sprinter at 6'3" and 165 pounds.That did not stop him from being confident. He had won the 50 andthe 100 at this year's NCAA championships, setting a short-courseworld record in the 50, and was ready to hit the big stage.Bottom called him "the best racer I've ever seen." The othermembers of Sprint Team 2000 had different words.

"A lot of guys didn't like him at first," Hall says. "I didn'tlike him at first. He's very confident. It's a good thing,self-confidence, because if you don't have confidence in thissport, you're not going to make it, but he'd push it. The more Iknew him, the more I liked him, but I still wanted to wring hisneck about every other day."

Once Ervin qualified for the U.S. team, the big story about himconcerned race. His father, Jack, is three-fourthsAfrican-American, one-fourth native American. That made the son37.5% African-American, giving Ervin the distinction of being thefirst African-American to swim for the U.S. in the Olympics.Despite his pale skin color, he was regarded in some breathlessreports as the sport's Jackie Robinson. It was not a role hewanted. "I want to be a role model," he says, "but I want to be arole model for all kids. People try to say I'm one thing oranother. I don't think it's a big deal being from mixed heritagethese days in America."

Hall's family history also became an issue in the media. He's theson of a famous swimmer, Gary Hall Sr. There were the images fromthe 1976 Montreal Games of Gary Sr. taking his two-year-old sonfrom his wife, Mary, and walking him around the pool to astanding ovation after winning a bronze medal in the 100butterfly. There was also the family legacy: Though Hall Sr. set11 world records, he had never won an Olympic gold medal in threeGames. Hall Jr. also had never won gold. This was overdramatized.

"The big thing is, this kid is totally different from the GaryHall [Jr.] of a few years ago," Hall Sr. says. "He's confronted adisease that made him worry about how he was going to function asa person, much less an athlete. He had to go to four doctorsbefore he found one who said he should keep swimming. He wants tobe a spokesman for people with diabetes, to show how a person canlive a full life. That is what is important to him now."

Hall and Ervin made their Sydney debut on the first night ofswimming as part of the 4x100 relay team. It was not a greatdebut. The U.S. men, who were unbeaten in every Olympics in whichthe event had been contested, were nipped by the Australians,even though Hall outswam Ian Thorpe on the anchor leg by sixhundredths of a second. Predictions of a U.S. disasterflourished. Former Olympic champion Mark Spitz already had saidthe U.S. women probably wouldn't win a single gold medal. Couldthis be true?

Considering the rise in performance levels around the world, therestrictions that limit each country to two swimmers per event,plus the hostile road environment, this was the best U.S. swimperformance in history. Each night a different American won agold. Today, Megan Quann in the 100 breaststroke, tomorrow MistyHyman in the 200 butterfly. Today, Tom Dolan in the 400individual medley, tomorrow Tom Malchow in the 200 fly.

Lenny Krayzelburg won gold in the 100 and the 200 backstroke andadded a third in the medley relay. Brooke Bennett settled in asthe successor to Janet Evans, taking the 400 and the 800freestyle. The U.S. men's and women's 4x100 medley relay teamssmashed world records en route to victory. If some other swimmerfrom some other country took gold, a U.S. swimmer was invariablyon the podium to receive silver or bronze. "It was inspiring towatch," Hall said. "So many people came up with personal bests.Some of the most inspiring performances were from people whodidn't get medals, who finished fifth in the best times of theirlives."

On the fifth day of swimming, Hall was on the medal stand again,to receive a bronze for the 100 freestyle. The winner was Pietervan den Hoogenband, 27, of the Netherlands, who set the worldrecord in the semifinals. Van den Hoogenband, also with a goldand the world record in the 200 freestyle, shared honors as themeet's individual star with teammate Inge de Bruijn, who won goldand set world records in the 100 butterfly and the 50 and the 100free. The two swimmers were coached by the same Dutchman,31-year-old Jacco Verhaeren, and that brought out the familiarinternational distress flags for drugs.

How had one man developed two overpowering swimmers? What was thesecret? Wasn't de Bruijn, at 27, a bit old for the boost in herperformance? (In a two-week span in May she tied or broke sixworld records.) How had van den Hoogenband pulled so far awayfrom the competition? The questions were asked.

"It's sad," said Verhaeren, who is also de Bruijn's boyfriend."If you swim fast, you're treated like a criminal. How do youprove to people that you are clean? There is no way. I just cameon the bus with Inge to the pool, and she read one of thesestories and was crying. Why should someone be crying on the wayto the Olympics to swim for a gold medal? She said maybe sheshouldn't swim so fast and then the stories would stop. I toldher, 'No, then you're giving in to all these people.' I tell youthis: If one of my swimmers ever tested positive for drugs, youwould never see me on a pool deck again."

The 50 final on the seventh night of swimming was van denHoogenband's chance to add a third gold. He was thesecond-fastest qualifier, behind Hall. Ervin was third. AlexanderPopov of Russia, the longtime king of the event and theworld-record holder (21.64), was fourth and looking to become thefirst man to win gold medals in any individual event in threestraight Games. Any of the four had a solid chance to win.

"Do you know who worries me the most?" Gary Hall Sr. asked beforethe race. "Anthony Ervin. I've said from the moment we got herethat he's the one to watch. Gary thinks so too."

Hall Sr. was happy simply to be at the race. Suffering from theflu earlier in the week, he went into endotoxic shock in themiddle of the night. An ophthalmologist, Hall knew what washappening. His blood pressure dropped in a hurry. He became veryweak. He lay on the floor, told his wife to call an ambulance andknew that the next 30 minutes would determine whether he lived ordied. His body either would handle the shock or not. Though hewould be rushed to the hospital, he knew the battle would takeplace within his body and would not be controlled by an outsideforce.

"I was in that ambulance, and I was thinking about Ron Karnaugh,the swimmer whose father died at the opening ceremonies inBarcelona," Hall Sr. said. "I was wondering, crazy as it sounds,whether Gary would still swim his races if I died. That's howserious it was. But by the time I got to the hospital I was fine.My body handled the shock."

Two nights later he settled in with the rest of the crowd at thepool. What would happen? There was his son, flexing muscles,throwing an imaginary uppercut during introductions. There wasErvin, who thought he'd be nervous but felt oddly at ease,another swim meet, another pool, ready to race. There was van denHoogenband, Popov...Bang!

The race was the usual explosion of froth and flailing. There wasno conservation of energy, virtually no breathing. The onlystrategy was to go as fast as you could. Hall got the best start.Ervin caught him. Van den Hoogenband was close. Popov was flying.Ervin...Hall...Hall...Ervin...van den Hoogenband? Popov?They all reached the finish as if they were carried by one largewave.

They turned...and looked. "I started out just trying to makethe team," Ervin said afterward. "A month ago that was in doubt.Now I'm at the top of the mountain."

"It took me a while to figure out what had happened," Hall Jr.said. "At first I thought I'd tied with van den Hoogenband. ThenI saw it was Anthony. If I had to share the gold with anyone, I'mglad it was him."

Two men. Two gold medals. Small world.

COLOR PHOTO: PHOTOGRAPH BY HEINZ KLUETMEIER GATEFOLD TWO TOO GOOD Hall Jr. (bottom) and Ervin tied in the 50 in 21.98, giving the dominant U.S. team two of its 14 golds in swimming.COLOR PHOTO: SIMON BRUTY QUICK START De Bruijn, here in a 100-meter heat, won gold and set world records in the 100 butterfly and the 50 and the 100 freestyle.COLOR PHOTO: HEINZ KLUETMEIER HAPPY ENDING Malchow (opposite) was first in the 200 fly, while Samantha Arsenault, Lindsay Benko, Diana Munz and Jenny Thompson were golden in the 4x200 relay.COLOR PHOTO: SIMON BRUTY [See caption above]

"It's sad," said de Bruijn's coach. "If you swim fast, you aretreated like a criminal."

This was the best U.S. swim performance in history. Each night adifferent American won a gold medal.